Lampblacks

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A type of pigment produced from the soot of burning oil, often used in artistic paints or inks
2. A carbon black pigment made by the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons, utilized in various industrial applications
3. A deep black material created from the carbonization of organic substances, commonly found in artistic and graphic materials

Etymology: Lampblack is a compound of "lamp" and "black," and the plural "lampblacks" simply refers to several kinds or batches of the pigment. The "lamp" half is the surprising one: it traces back through Middle English "laumpe" and Old French "lampe" to Late Latin "lampada" and ultimately to the ancient Greek "lampas," a torch, from the verb "lampein," to shine. So the pigment's name records a flame rather than a lamp in the modern sense. The "black" half is ancient, descending from Proto-Germanic "blakaz" and Old English "blæc." The word is a plain combination of those two elements, so there is no hidden story in its construction beyond the sense of the two parts together: soot collected from a lamp flame, which is what the pigment originally was.